North and South Korea
History and context Due to the consequences of WWII, in 1943, it was decided at the Cairo conference that Korea should be an independent country. To years later, after Japan taking fatal damage from America and causing them to surrender the war, the superior countries quickly turned their heads towards East-Asia. It was time to settle the outcome of the Korean island. The north side of Korea was taken and governed by the Soviet Union and the south by the Americans. Keep in mind, it was supposed to be a temporary solution to have these occupation zones. The idea behind these occupation zones was to one day be able to unite Korea to be a single independent country. However, it turned out to become the complete opposite. They tried to create a Soviet-American government and through free election be able to unite Korea. However, the Soviet and Americans were not able to agree to each others terms and instead of creating a mutual government, it ended up creating two different governments with two different ideologies. As a result of the disagreement between the North and the South side, the Korean war broke lose in 1950. Even though it was a war between North and the south side, it was due to obvious reasons that the war was heavily influenced by the Americans and Soviet Union. The Americans had UN on their side and Soviet had China on their side. The first year of the war belonged to Soviet, because the South side lacked heavily in terms of soldiers. It was a straight out blood war between two nations that seeked the same goal, being the only Korean state in the world. The UN played a huge part in South-Korea’s recovery, since they supplied them with military and medical infantries. The Chinese and Soviet armies was forced the retreat, and because of the damage that was forced onto both sides, they started to negotiate about a ceasefire. Both parties was finally able to agree, and on the 27th of July 1953 a ceasefire was accepted. Point of view Even though the nations were able to agree on a ceasefire, the problems between North and South was far from over. The border between them is called 38th parallel north, and to this day it is still considered as one of the most dangerous and tense borders in the world. We all might wonder why two nations that share so much history together decided to “end” things between them by constructing a heavily guarded border. From the very first day the border was created, the amount of hate and hostility between North and South has probably raised with the years. Either of the nations seems to be interested in making peace each other, but slowly and surely worked towards becoming an independent country. Both countries being heavily influenced by the nations that brought them to war, have gone two completely different roads in terms of developing their countries. South-Korea is today a democratic state with a president and with a good economical growth. North-Korea is today referred to as a communist dynasty with one leader, and suffers from famine. It might also be the most closed country in the world. The outside world lacks information on North-Korea, but the information that seems to “slip” through are only positive regards. So both nations seems to at least agree on one thing, that none of them should ever cross the border. Push & Pull factors Because of the tension between these nations, there seems to be really no reason to cross each others borders. The little information that we have about North-Korea tells us that crossing the border is not an option for any citizen, wether they would like to or not. The North-Korean people seems to be fed with propaganda, and believe that their living conditions are perfect. Even though most of the citizens tend to be on their nice side and not cross the border, there has been some attempts by the North-Korean military. North-Korea seems very interested to get information about South-Korea. These are mainly infiltrators who gets discovered as they cross the border, causing them to have several shoot-outs throughout history. South-Korea has also discovered different attempts where North-Korea has tried to dig a tunnel beneath the border, but those missions has also been discovered. Security The security on the 38th parallel north is known to be heavily guarded, with armed soldiers on both sides to prevent any unauthorized access to either country. None of the countries are afraid to kill each other, as mentioned above. Possible solutions Based on the history between these two nations and how things are today, it seems to really be any solution to their problems. None of the countries are willing to help each other and it is fairly hard to even communicate with each other on friendly terms. This might be a result of the war and the different ideologies raised in the country, but maybe also a lack of information about each other. Sources The historical information is based on these sources: https://snl.no/Koreakrigen https://snl.no/S%C3%B8r-Korea https://snl.no/Koreas_historie http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demilitarisert_sone_(Korea) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone